Oregon and Portland had very flat  rent rates for at least a decade then exploded.. all that did was lead to state wide rent controlI think folks need to be cognizant of this as we move forward..

Great part is she will almost certainly screw up the whole bidding war idea...that works best if you get the wide exposure a broker gives you and if you price it competitively to begin with.

This service is more widely available now and my rationale for having that element remains primarily to speed my ability to respond to opportunity since I go to a lot of auctions. 

You can filter by the beds and baths and other aspects to make the results as close as possible to the one you're comparing.When I build my semi-automated hotsheet for investors, I take exports from the MLS from both the sales side and the rentals side, pull them into a SQL Server database, do some data cleaning to screen out as much of the garbage as possible, and run what I call my "magic query" that joins sale listing locations to rental listing locations by a conditional match on subdivision and beds/baths, or the average of the entire MLS if the subdivision is given as "METES & BOUNDS", with a flag in the output showing that those M 'n B rental numbers are MLS-wide averages for a given beds/baths and will need a more in-depth evaluation (like rentometer) if the estimated cash on cash return for a classic 20% down scenario, looks promising. 

Depending on how many points you want to buy, assuming you have above 740+ credit, your interest rates can vary widely.

Having said that, there are two ends of a pretty wide spectrum of philosophy on this subject. 

Charlotte suburbs have been red-hot pretty much since the 90s (with the brief exception of the nation-wide downturn).In my opinion, the "investor-havens" like Belmont, Kannapolis, parts of Union County, Rock Hill are a little over-rated.

I was thinking more for a single family so it would definitely be a good idea to get a quote on it beforehand due to the wide range of how much it could actually cost.

I think you are going to get a wide range of opinions here because ultimately where and how you choose to live/invest can be a very personal decision and vary based on personal values, desired lifestyle, investment strategy, etc.

In a high demand area, there's not a ton of turnover and you don't need to advertise as widely.